Hi all. Running 6.6.6 and have some confusion about the cache disk.

 

I created a new share and set use cache to 'Yes'. I then started moving a large number of files (more than the size of the disk) from Windows 10 to the share in one drag and drop. Eventually I reached a point where Windows halted the move and reported that the disk was full, and asked if I wanted to try again.

 

My questions are:

1. With use cache being set to Yes, I though that once it fills up it will automatically start writing to disk instead. In this case the cache filled completely (I guess it was in the middle of a file) and Windows refused to continue to write, even when I clicked Try Again. Did I misunderstand / misconfigure something?

 

2. The only way to get the file move going again was to change the Use Cache setting to NO. Windows then proceeded to move the files as normal. I invoked the mover, however after running (for only a minute really.... way too fast it seems) it only lists 3GB free, which I'm assuming means that it moved nothing off the cache. Are the files from the beginning of the move now orphaned on the disk? Do I need to manually move these to the share in /mnt/user ? Will it find the files again if I turn Use Cache back to on?

 

Thanks in advance!

Change that user share back to cache-yes and run mover. When it is finished, change the share back to cache-no. I recommend not caching anything until you are finished with the initial data load since cache typically won't have the capacity and moving in the middle of copying files will actually make things worse.

 

Mover only moves cache-yes shares from cache to array and cache-prefer shares from array to cache. Any other setting and mover will ignore the share.

 

Mover ordinarily runs on a schedule, which defaults to once a day in the middle of the night, when presumably the load on the server will be less. You can change that schedule. There is also a plugin which will run mover based on free space. But as I mentioned, moving during copying will actually make things worse.

 

A share set to cache-yes will overflow to the array if cache gets too full. But for Unraid to decide cache is too full, you have to set Minimum Free for cache in Global Share Settings.

 

Unraid has no way of knowing how large a file will become when it decides which disk to begin writing it to. If a disk has less than Minimum Free, Unraid will choose another disk. You should set Minimum Free to larger than the largest file you expect to write.

 

Each User Share also has a Minimum Free setting, which will cause Unraid to choose another disk on the array in a similar manner.

Appreciate the help. Looks like the minimum free setting was set to 2MB. Changed that to 10GB and got the mover going like you said. All is good. Thanks!